LOS ANGELES, Calif. – At every turn of Endeavour’s stop-and-go commute through the working class streets of southern Los Angeles, a constellation of spectators trailed along to watch the space shuttle ploddingly nose past stores, schools, churches and front yards.
Along the 12-mile (19-kilometre) course, thousands marveled at the engineering of the vessel which escaped the Earth’s atmosphere two dozen times. Some rooted for Endeavour when it appeared it might clip a light post. Others wondered if it would ever hurry up and reach its destination after it failed to arrive on time.
In any case, the shuttle’s slow-speed trek Saturday became part of history.
“This is great for the city as a whole. It makes us proud,” said Dean Martinez, a project director for a non-profit who began waiting before dawn to see Endeavour.
The space shuttle had been scheduled to inch into the California Science Center early Saturday evening to begin its years as a museum piece, but delay after delay pushed the expected arrival time past 1 a.m. Sunday, perhaps hours later.
Agencies scrambled to make new plans. Because it was spending far more hours in darkness than expected, city fire trucks with generators and huge halogen lights were brought in to accompany it. Subway and light rail lines further extended their special operating hours well into the night, with some running 24 hours.
An accumulation of small problems involving manoeuvring and maintenance slowed down Endeavour’s latest journey.
For instance, a small tree on the narrowest section of the move that planners hadn’t thought needed removal brought the procession to a stop. As crews tried to find ways to tilt and twist the shuttle past the tree, they came close to deciding to cut it down before Endeavor squeezed through. Another slip-up came when it appeared the shuttle was going to hit a light post, and crews again began plans to remove it as the ship slid through.
Unlike other high-profile events such as the Academy Awards or the Rose Parade, the procession was centred in some of the area’s most economically downtrodden and troubled places. The shuttle passed several gritty areas and shuttered businesses, and rolled down many streets that were aflame two decades earlier during the 1992 riots brought on by the Rodney King beating.
Endeavour hit the pavement before dawn Friday, trundling out of the Los Angeles International Airport on a remote-controlled 160-wheel carrier past diamond-shaped “Shuttle Xing” signs. When it reached a freeway overpass that night, it was towed by a truck.
The shuttle made a late-morning pit stop Saturday at the Forum – former home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team – where it was greeted in the arena’s parking lot by a throng of cheering spectators. It was late to its second public celebration that included a dance performance choreographed by Debbie Allen.
For most of the way, Endeavour straddled wide boulevards – Manchester, Crenshaw, Martin Luther King Jr. The one exception was when the shuttle ambled through a slightly curved residential street lined with apartment buildings on both sides – a spot that caused some delay.
Before the move, some area residents lamented over the loss of shade as trees were chopped down to provide clearance. But others thought it was a decent trade.
“If you have to go through a little bit of pain to have something nice for the community, then it’s worth it,” said Pamela Tucker, who lives a block away from Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Endeavour may have circled the globe nearly 4,700 times, but its roots are grounded in California. Its main engines were fabricated in the San Fernando Valley. The heat tiles were invented in Silicon Valley. Its “fly-by-wire” technology was developed in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey.
It’s no longer shiny and sleek, like when it first rolled off the assembly line in the Mojave Desert in 1991 to replace the lost Challenger. As it cruised block-by-block, it’s hard to miss what 123 million miles in space and two dozen re-entries can do to the exterior.
Shuffling Endeavour through city streets was a laborious undertaking – nearly a year in the making. It could not be taken apart without damaging the delicate tiles. Airlifting it was out of the question. So was driving on freeways since it was too massive to fit through underpasses.
There were consequences. Several hundred Inglewood residents suffered hours-long outages when power lines were temporarily snipped. Some businesses lost customers because of street and sidewalk closures.
Such a move is not cheap. The cross-town transport was estimated at $10 million, to be paid for by the science centre and private donations.
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Associated Press writer Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this story.
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